Gaining confidence in the kitchen, one messy pan at a time

Do you know what living on the edge is?

Let me explain. Tonight, I made my very first lasagna. Not just any lasagna, but a vegan lasagna. Yeah, I know. Stay with me.

It was quite the undertaking considering that it requires pressing tofu…. have you ever pressed tofu? It’s crazy. First off, it smells. Bad. Second, it leaks everywhere, and for a very long time. I’m glad that I pressed it for 6 hours (in the fridge, because room temp tofu=ew), because apparently, that’s what it needed to become dry. Thankfully, I used two of my 8-pound hand weights to help me out because ain’t nobody got books heavy enough to press some damn tofu adequately.

The recipe called for tofu, juice of two lemons, oregano, and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember right now. Let’s be honest, you’re not reading this for the actual recipe.

Well, considering that it’s been a hot minute since I’ve blogged about cooking (or cooked in general), I felt very much like I did a few years ago when I started this endeavor. Lost, slightly confused, and almost loving it. Considering that I used multiple kitchen utensils to fish lemon seeds out of the blender, I became very much aware that I haven’t really improved on my skills quite like I had thought.

I placed the pressed tofu into the blender, then went down the ingredients list per the recipe. First up: juice of two lemons. Seems easy enough. I’ll just rinse them, squish them, then cut them in half and squeeze them directly into the blender. WRONG! Hey, guess what, spoiler alert: Lemons have seeds in them. D’yaforget about that? Yeah, I did. #IswearImsmart

Once I had squeezed the juice of one lemon into the blender I realized there are seeds in lemons. Honestly, I had looked at the first lemon that I cut in half and didn’t see any seeds before I squeezed so I went about my business squeezing the juice of one lemon into the blender…. Then came the second lemon. And oh snap. There were seeds everywhere. Do you know how hard it is to fish lemon seeds out of a blender full of tofu? Really hard. Like, who knew that lemon seeds would blend in with crumbled (adequately pressed) tofu?

I’m trying to grab the lemon seeds on top that I can see. Then some of them fall, then I use a knife, trying to work around the blades that go up the entire length of the blending receptacle, in hopes to shimmy the seeds up the side of the blender, but I just end up pushing the seeds into the tofu. Then I grab a different knife. I had contemplated the use of a fork, but decided that the bend in the fork would be too severe to navigate around the blender blades. Fail.

I resort to lifting the crumbled tofu out of the blender, but I didn’t have anywhere to put it. I had already squeezed the juice of two lemons into the blender, so the tofu was becoming less dry and more liquid. It was a mess. I decide I’m just going to use my hands like a rake. But first, let me take a selfie…just kidding, the blades, let me take the blades out. In retrospect, I should have done this sooner. So anyway, here I am, elbow deep in a blender (I more than satisfactorily washed my hands and arms), fishing lemon seeds out of the bottom of a blender. I tilt the receptacle and hold up the tofu so that the lemons seeds will fall to the bottom so that I can more easily “scoop” them. It worked!

As for the seeds that blend in with tofu, it’s just gonna be some crunchy vegan lasagna. #sorrynotsorry

Lesson learned: Don’t pulse tofu and ingredients until all the ingredients are in the blender. Trying to pulse the ingredients THEN adding spinach is a great way to make mushy tofu, but that’s another post.

Positive lesson learned: OMG! I made a dang lasagna! I CAN do this.

Also, wanna see my lasagna??? I made a smiley face out of zucchini, cuz why not? Don’t you judge me.

And embarrassingly enough, here is the aftermath of me cooking……It’s gotta get easier than this.